


Whose Job is Diversity? YOURS!

by Franzeska



Series: March Meta Matters [11]
Category: Fandom - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23114770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzeska/pseuds/Franzeska
Summary: A collection of musings on a popular tumblr topic
Series: March Meta Matters [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664836
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	1. Whose Job is Diversity?

**Author's Note:**

> Posted for day 11 of the March Meta Matters Challenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: August 6, 2016.
> 
> https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/148536148899/whose-job-is-diversity
> 
> Of course, people responding were like "But people who complain are upset because they _are_ trying to be the change and no one's listening!" That's nice. I'm sure it happens. Occasionally. All I can say is that the people I was seeing at the time were a nasty combo of fans who only ship like two ships, both white juggernauts, crying about their feelings, and fans whose only fanwork is _hate_.
> 
> If one tenth of the people performing their guilt in public actually _did_ anything about it, fandom would look very different.

This year’s AO3 ship stats have kicked off the usual rounds of self-flagellation about fandom and diversity, and I am left with the same little red hen feeling as last year and every other year this hypocritical crying happens. Yes, it is objectively true that fandom ships a lot of white people. (It is not objectively true that fandom mostly ships m/m, though it’s true on AO3.)

But whose job is it to “fix” that? I say it’s the job of whoever is worried about it. Most of the time, when I see someone talking about it being a problem, their tumblr turns out to be full of destiel, stucky, and the white juggernaut pairings du jour. The only time diversity gets mentioned is in downer posts guilt tripping the rest of fandom for liking the wrong things. “Okay for me, but not for you” is the message.

So for whomever is angsting this year, let me ask you something:

  * When was the last time you wrote some fic about characters of color?
  * Made art? A vid? A gifset even?
  * What about reccing canons with good diversity? And I mean a real rec with reasons why the canon is awesome that go beyond “It has diversity, so you are obligated to care”.
  * Or running a fic exchange, fest, or kinkmeme?
  * Or making recs lists, fyeah tumblrs, pairing primers, or fandom guides to help new people find things?
  * What about just commenting to let fic writers know you like their work?

Writing epic fic is hard. It’s unpaid labor in our free time. It’s often an expression of a very personal part of our id. The subtext of a lot of moaning about diversity in fandom is “Write me the longfic I want and give it to me now!” But other people’s hobby time is not ours to command. In patriarchal societies, women are expected to spend our time in the service of others, so the idea that we’d write what turns us on instead of what someone else tells us we ought to is anathema, even to many people in fandom. But we don’t apply the same standards to ourselves except when we’re melting into a puddle of performative shame.

How about, this year, instead of pointing the finger at each other or crying about our complicity and guilt, we just post some recs? Or go leave a single lousy kudos on some ~diverse~ fic. Is that really too much to ask?


	2. "Can we just talk about...?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: January 14, 2020.
> 
> https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/190259364434/ruffboijuliaburnsides-jujubiest
> 
> This was part of a long discussion on the famous post "every time I see more of the ‘ao3 is evil’ crap circulating I think, ‘well, tumblr is evil too and I don’t see you stop using it’"
> 
> Someone piped up mostly agreeing but saying: “I think we should talk about the issues with things like incest ships and ships with large age gaps”
> 
> Several of us disagreed.

The thing I’m most tired of in fandom is “Can we just talk about…?”

Here’s the thing: it’s very, very, very often a cover for “Can I just tell you why your favorite thing is _terrible_ and you should _feel terrible_ for liking it?”

But it’s also: “Well, I ship [overly popular, white, or villain-infested ship], but at least I know it’s problematic! I think it’s important to taaaaalk about these things!”

No. No it’s not. If the content that fandom puts out sucks, then what is important is to _make other content_.

If other people post too much incest porn, write some plotty gen or some vanilla porn or whatever it is you think should be more common to drown it out.

If a ship is baaaaaad and should have less content, then stop talking about it. Don’t give it space in your brain or your social media.

Every time I see people boo-hooing about these kinds of topics, I wonder if they’ve noticed the big chunks of fandom that only like gen or stan a character of color or write epic fics about OFCs or whatthefuckever. All of those people are putting their money where their mouth is and making fandom more about the thing they like.

“We should talk about” is a pretense of responsibility. **But it’s actually the _opposite_.**


End file.
